Happy december everybody!

If I could have written all the blog posts I have written inside my head while in the shower, bus or other non-computer containing place I would be posting very regularly! Unfortunately, at least in this respect, there are no brain transcribers.
Well it is december, my school term is officially over, all I have left now are final exams. This term has left me pretty exhausted and I am not feeling the exams at all. I'm just not interested.. I know they need to be done, but I'm not caring to much this instant. The caring part will most likely kick in a few hours before the exam. i need adrenaline to study appearantly :P
so what's up lately?
Saturday night we had a big American thanksgiving/early christmas dinner with Alan's family in Hawkesbury. It was very nice and it made me a little nostalgic. I realise how much I feel at home here and that I will definetly miss being here for christmas, even though I have been wanting to go home for many years now. I consider myself lucky to have so many people in my life I care about, not just family, but some special friends as well.
Well, I took a break from write ups on sunday night and went to batman's cookie exchange, which was exactly what I needed. I didnt make any of the cookies, I have to admit Alan baked mine. and his cookies came in second. Way to go!! So I got to show up, stuff my face, listen to conversations and go back home for some more write ups. I was impressed by the cookie quality, they went up from last year I feel. Delicious! Thanks again batman for a lovely time :).
I want to decorate the house, bake cookies and sing carols. Oh school, I will not miss you next christmas time!! Oh no, I wll not...
Monday was the luckiest unlucky day I have ever had in my entire life. This is a short excerpt of my day:
- finished my lab write up, the day of submission (of course), tried to take the bus on a snow day, took me 2 hours to get to school, therefore, my report was late = marks deducted per hour
- However, labprof remarkebly lenient, due to said snow from the heavens, therefore no marks deducted.. Yay..
-missed exam review due to said snow
- almost got suspended from school for plagiarism (or almost failed a course for same reason) I didnt commit, but didnt get kicked out due to convincing plea bargain/lazy prof not wanting to do anything about it
-no microwave to heat up food, forgot wallet at home, so no money to buy food either...
- had 3 hrs to study for lab exam the same night, went alright
- just missed train on the way home
- after catching next train, waited for the bus for 55 minutes
- when bus finally showed up (read, frozen toes, tired and hungry) I was told my buspass had expired (happy december!), no wallet, see above=no bustickets nor money.
- sympathetic fellow buswaiter/icecube gave me her bustickets
-got home at 10:45..
in summary! Stellar day :D
Needless to say I slept in big time the next day, which was Mike's birthday. I went to the mall to buy him a gift and myself a couple of sweaters, drove Mrs home from work as I was in the aera anyway, and that evening we went out for dinner at swiss chalet and we had cake at Mike's place after. It was a nice time.
Last night I had a good time playing a PC version of a certain guitar gameI have fallen in love with. A well known computer genius found it somewhere and i am practising my skillZ. that's all I have to say :)

a snippit of inspiration

As I am sitting in the lab waiting for my labpartner to show up, I felt inspired to add a quick update to my blog. I still love you blog, I truly do, but I have been neglectful, and if its over between you and me I udnerstand. I hope we can work things out though... Maybe I will give you a nice new look, buy you something pretty, what do you say? :)
I think that was a yes. Alright!
So what has been going on in the last 3 months.. holy crap, that's along time. Anyways.. Well a lot and not so much at the same time. School mostly, which has been insane with 6 courses, one of them being my thesis project.
Lets see. passed my summer classes, had a great 25th birthday with my mom visiting and an awesome party. school started, my thesis is coming along very slowly. I am passing all my courses so far and doing alright in them, some better than others. Right now is pretty stressful with formal labs, lab exams, final exams and thesis project being stuck because my prof is lazy, meaning everything neesd to eb done last minute. I am trying to get into a course next semester I just recently found out about which I am realllllyyyyy hoping to get into because it sounds awesome but chances are pretty slim.
On the bright side. I have become an aunt of the most beautiful little girl called veerle. She's awesome and I cant wait to go see her, which will happen in a few weeks at christmas time when I'll be flying home for 3 weeks!! Unfortunately Alan will be staying home :( He has to work and it's too much money for both of us to go. Sadly. I am going to miss him a lot, but on the up side I will go home for chistmas which has been 6 years, and I get to spend it with lots of people I love and do all sorts of things I have missed doing, so I am sure I will still have lots of fun.
Alan's brother recently got engaged to a great girl. We're all very happy for them and they are getting married down south. yay caribean here I come... well ok, next winter, but still!
I have recently discovered guitar hero on the xbx. I love that game!
Alan's poppa was in the hospital for a stroke which thankfully turned out to be minor. He is going home today and we are going to celebrate thanksgiving-chrsitmas family dinner in hawkesbury at Alan's aunt's house this weekend because his other aunt is down from BC.
On the school front. As of this point I still have 2 labreports 2 labexams and 4 final exams to go until christmas. I am going to study. Ciao

I'm still alive but stressed out a little

I have lots of lovely stories to tell you about the past two wonderful weekends. However, as per usual I have been procrastinating when it comes to school work, now resulting in me frantically trying to cram stuff into my head and watching all my cutv dvds for 2 classes 4 days before the exams. Therefore you will understand me taking a little break from blogging until next blessed week when I will hopefully have more interesting stories to tell you, and 2 whole weeks of before I am back to school! So, hold tight for a novel and who knows maybe even some pictures!

Yay Long Weekend!

I cant believe it is August already! Wow, this summer is going to be gone next time I blink.
I had a pretty uneventful week, except that on wednesday morning, when I flipped my calendar to the new month I realised I had an exam that eveing. Oops, I was lucky I did that in the morning, and my midterm wasnt until the evening, still had a few hours of study time :) I think my exam went as well as could be expected!
Our first little tomatoes are starting to ripen. They are a nice orangy red and I can not wait to eat one! yummmmmm!
Today I made hummus and pasta sauce and dinner. I went to the library to pick up some more books for my english lit. class and did some quick groceries. Alan and I have been cat sitting for his parents this week while they were on holiday visiting with some friends and family. I brought them some of the supper I made and left it in their fridge, because the worst is when you get home from a long trip to have to do groceries and make dinner and get back into the routine right away, dont you think? I do anyway...
Tonight we're going to the drive-in I am *so* excited. We havent been able to go yet this summer, so it will be a nice break of routine. Other than that we dont have a lot of excitement planned for this weekend. We're thinking of working on some project around the house, perhaps finish the garden project, or clean up the garage or fix the wall of our house, havent decided yet. We might also go and see Alan's poppa zs we havent seen him in ages. All posibilities.
Our friends are getting married in Newfoundland tomorrow and I really wish we could be there to see it. I hope they will have wonderfully happy day and a nice weather!
I am planning a party for my 25th birthday. I almost never celebrate my birthday with friends, I think this is the first time in 10 or more years that I am, and I am *really* excited and looking forward to it! I hope people can make it on short notice, either way, I'm planning on having a good time.
The countdown is on:
15 days until the last day of exams the star of my holidays and my Party!
17 days until mama comes!!
19 days until my actual birthday!!

my world

My friend batman found this fun website where you can 'colour your world' and show people where you have visited. I decided I would do mine to see what percentage of the world I have been to so far.


The answer is only 6%. I would love to see a lot more, but it's not in the books right now. This is how much I have seen of Canada. Also, not enough just yet! Ooh the plans that are wurling through my head will unfortunatly have to wait until I am done school...




We didnt end up going shopping last night as Mrs had found an awesome deal some place and went ahead and bought it. Instead i went to watch Alan's soccer game and had a fun time. Tonight we're going to go for dinner at a pho place with some friends of mine. Her uncle owns the restaurant and I am curious to see how this restaurant measures up to all the other pho places I have been to in this city (=quite a few)

Meet the new baby and great weekend!

Long time no write. I can't say I have been that busy, I just havent felt like writing all that much, but today I do. I couldnt decide how to start this time, so I used both titles. First things first. This picture is a screen shot from an ultrasound my brother and sister had done. It's a 45 minute movie of the baby that they put on dvd for you and I am getting a copy when my mom comes over. I am *so* excited!!!! That will be the best birthday present ever! I am teasing my brother that his little baby has inherited the infamous family nose, which is rather large, but in reality it's a cute little nose :) I think it is the most beautiful 6 month old in the belly baby I have ever seen dont you?!?


I havent gotten back on the exercise wagon yet. I am still convinced I'm going to be running today though..
I had a really fun weekend this weekend. Friday I wrote my midterm (that wasnt the fun part, wait for it..) Than the O-train didnt show up for 45 minutes (wait for it) and than Alan called me while I was on the train to tell me he was coming to get me. He picked me up and we went to see Transformers. I really liked it!
Saturday was soccer time, and we had a fun game even though we lost. I am getting a little frustrated with my lack of ability to actually make the ball do what I want it to do, I think I am over analysing it so I should just go and have fun! After soccer we bought Harry Potter 7. It was such a beautiful day I felt like going to the beach so I called my friend Batman. Her husband J was going windsurfing, so it worked out really well and we all met at the beach. Alan came to learn how to windsurf and we hung out on the beach. It was my first time at the beach this year and it was awesome. Saturday night I met up with my friend J and we went to Hooley's for drinks and dancing. Again *so* much fun! When I came home I found out we had caught a skunk in our trap. Oops... Alan got it out the next day by hiding behind an old sheet so the skunk couldnt see him. He carefully lowered the sheet over the trap and propped the trap open with a piece of wood. He didnt get sprayed! I wish I had thought to take a picture because he looked really funny.
After this we visited with grandpa in renfrew, had chineses buffet for lunch and met up with our friends (old neighbours)J&J (too many J's here!) for dinner, probably the last time we'll have dinner in their old apartment before they move to our side of town! Yay! We'll be neighbours again. sort of... We had lots of delicious food and J and I had lots of delicious drinks. It was fun times!
This week has been pretty uneventful. Tonight Mrs, J and I are going shopping for a wedding shower gift for a family friend of ours.

Rain drops keep falling..

and falling and falling and falling. They woke me up in the middle of the night along with some thunder and lightning (2:30ish). It is now 2:30 in the afternoon and it is still raining. It has not stopped raining for 12 hrs. Way to go! I feel right at home :) This is honestly the coolest wettest summer I have experienced here so far. Not a bad thing per se, as summers can be a little bit toooo much, but at the same time I must say I kind of miss it. It is good for our lawns and gardens, and it is going to be warm on the weekend. Good timing up there :)
I went out for lunch and to see the Harry Potter movie on tuesday afternoon with my friend B. I liked it. It wasn't the best of the movies so far, but it was still nice to see. You need to have read the book s to understand it I felt, it is a lot of 'random scenes' stitched together otherwise. This weekend is the big 7th book unveiling. I am hoping to get my hands on a copy before someone spoils the ending.. We will see if I'll be able to or not. Ok, back to studying Business, only one more midterm to go and it is the weekend! yay!
Ps I almost havent exercised at all this week and I really miss it, tomorrow is soccer and than back to running.

1 down 1 to go

I just finished writing my first midterm of the 2nd summer semester. I think it went well. Speaking of going well, I finally got my marks back for my exams and I did better than I thought I would, As per usual. This is very nice and slightly frustrating as I was again convinced that I was going to fail. Luckily for me I was wrong :)
I have one more midterm to go on friday, which I still have to do a lot of work for. First I am going to Oliver's with a friend from class to celebrate my midterm is over though.
Our vegetable garden is doing well. Most pepper plants have little pepers on them. 3 brocollis and three lettuces are growing back, our pea plants are growing back and so is the spinach. Time for another groundhog yousay? Indeed it was, but we caught this little guy before it could eat our veggies. It was only a young animal, I hope he'll like his new home in the greenbelt along with groundhog numero uno. Our tomatoe plants are full of unripe tomatoes. I cant wait to taste them! Our radishes are doing well also, to bad neither Alan nor I like them. Oh well, more for his parents I guess. Anyway, time for drinks. Write you later!

I DID IT!

I am so excited to let you know that I ran my full 5k and I did a good job too! I am really proud of myself and had a really good time doing it. I ran the 5k in 28:20 ish minutes (i'm not sure as I was focussing on making it over the finishline and I assumed someone else would keep track of the times. I was about 30sec after my friend batman who motivated me to go running and I am totally pumped to go now. Congratulations batman! And thanks again. :)
I am taking a day off running today because me legs feel pretty tired, but I am going to keep running to improve for the next race Batman and I are thinking of doing in september.
This week is study week, appearantly I already have midterms now, so I better get my bum in gear and get studying and watching lectures. Talk to you soon!

Tomorrow is the big day!

Ok this week I have been a bundle of stress for no particular reason. I dont like it but there it is. I'm not that good at tackeling a mountain of things still on my To Do list and instead of starting I get overwhelmed and dont want to do anything. I really need to learn how to deal with that, because it is no fun.
Speaking of fun, I had a really fun time at the bachelorette party I attended last saturday. It wasn't really all that outragous, there were a couple of funny games at the maid of honour's house, but mostly it was just a real fun girls night out. I had a little to much to drink, this seems to be the theme of bachelorette parties. We met up with the bachelor party on the way home as they had rented a yellow schoolbus to drive them around. It got to drive us around to our designated places of inhabittance/cars for whomever was still able to drive home. Yay no cab :)
I havent gotten my marks back yet which is to be expected yet slightly frustrating as I am still not sure if I'm allowed to stay in the class I am taking as this depends on the mark I got on the final. I had to register for my fall/winter courses this past week. So far no real luck with the winter term yet, I am trying to get into a course I think would be very interesting but it is major restricted. So I am trying to work my way into that one. My other courses arent set in stone yet, I may still change them, I will let you know later on what I will be taking, it will be busy anyway.
I have been pretty good with running this week. I am not convinced I'll be able to run the full 5k, which I need to change as I defintely wont be able to with that mind set, but anyway, I am really glad with how much I have improved though. During my last run I came close to running 4k. I am super happy at my progress from coming from 1.6k to running just under 4k in about 10 days is not bad. I realyl feel it is mostly in my head and in my breathing. If I can keep a steady pase and just focus and run with confidence it goes so much better than if I think about how far it is and how hard etc etc because than I start talking myself down and that doesnt help. I am not from a very athletic background, I have never done anything like this before. I have done a lot of dancing, but in this regard that doesnt realy count. I never played sports or running so I am new to the 'mental preparation' thing that I need to do. I think it is very good for me on many levels and I am looking forward to tomorrow. Today I get to pick up my race package, probably after soccer and than we are going to a get together at Z's place. It should be fun!
One last thing before I leave, my mom is coming to visit me for my Birthday!!! I am *so* excited! She'll stay for 2 weeks while I have time off of school. Sweet!!!

Sweet victory!

So much to tell you, but first things first. We finally caught our damn groundhog. It is in the trap as we speak, waiting to be moved to a new habitat. I actually saw it go into the trap which was the icing on the cake! Alan saw it earlier today as it had flipped the trap on it side and was eating the apple in it without actually springing the trap. But he reset it and placed some heavy stones on top and around it so that our hog couldnt puch it over. After circling the trap about 10 times (I'm not even kidding) It finally discovered whcih side was in and.. the hog is ours!
Ok I dont hate the animal, honest, I feel kinda bad for it, but we're going to find it a ncie home away from our veggies. Bye bye groundhog, hello Brocolli... maybe, if it survives this second attack.. we will see.
this past weekend was camping weekend and it was fabulous. After finishing my last dreadful exam which we will not talk about right now, I took the bus home, grabed some clothes, and jumped in the car. After a quick McDonalds Detour we were on our way to fun and relaxation.. and rain.. The groupsite was absolutely fabulous, it was nice and big a very well set up with different levels of little mini sites attached to a main campground with tons of pick-nick tables and a firepit. Alan and I set up camp and right after we were done it started pooring rain. It rained for most of the rest of the afternoon, stopped for supper and then rained again for a good chunk of the evening. luckily some of our friends had brought extra tarps which they strong up in the trees and it made a very cozy dry area which we all piled under. We played cards, had lots of junk food, drinks and laughs it was good and our tent works well, even in rain. The next day was nicer. We swam, played washers, played frisbee, drank more, ate more bad food, playedmore cards, had another (more succesful) fire than the first night, and made smores and cooked marshmellows. It was awesome. It was Also M's birthday, which we celebrates with a piniata (?) filled with candy, presents and a realy freshly baked birthdaycake and icecream! M got a camping oven for his birthday 2 yrs ago and it actually works really really well! you put it over top of your colemanstove and away you go! Awesome!
Monday we packed up our tent and had breakfast, lounched around for the rest of the morning and went home early afternoon. We had lunch in a very country little family diner on the way home (Woody's Pit Stop) and had Pizza and Poutine for lunch, delicious! At home I had a three hour nap and helped Alan clean up camping stuff, we had camping leftovers for supper and had a lazy evening and watched Indiana Jones, the last crusade.
Yesterday I went shopping with my friends J and K to find a nice outfit for R's bachelorette party this coming saturday. I can not wait, it is going to be fabulous, I'm sure pictures will follow.
And to finish off a nice day with a nice ending our friends K&J came for dinner. It was *so* nice seeing them again and catching up. I havent seen those two nearly enough this summer, hopefully we can have another get together again. We might do a weekend of camping/cottageing with them. Hopefully this will happen, it owuld be a lot of fun!
I am signing up or a 5k run on july 15th. K inspired me, I am *very* excited. This will force me to go running and also, I have always wanted to do a race. I am not expecting to do extremely well time wise, as I am not in great shape yet, but I am going to give it my best shot.Today I ran about 2k, but I didnt stretch enough so I started getting a cramp and I ended up walking the last 400m I was planning on running to Alan's parents house. Tehre I swam for about 20 minutes and than I came home again. It was a nice starting day for excersise, I'll keep you posted.

2 down 1 to go

I am almost finished my exams for this part of the summer. So far I am not ecstatic about how my exams went, but oh well, they are done, and what is more important, tomorrow is camping time! I cant wait, I'm so excited, eventhough they are expecting rain. big deal, our tent is still pretty new and so it should be waterproof! Besides there is nothing better than hearing the rain on your tent while you are warm and dry and cozy inside it relaxing, while smelling the fresh wet forest smell, I think that might be one of my favorite smells, especially when the earth was hot and dry before, are you with me?
I will be posting some awesome cat pictures soon, I know I keep promising this, but exams have gotten in the way.
Alright I'm going back to learning more about emotional and motivated behaviours, only a few more hours and I will have a whole weekend of camping! Yay! Anyway, Happy Canada day everyone! enjoy your weekend

lovely weekend but back to work

On friday night Alan and I got our stuff all ready to go to go to J's cottage so we didnt have to do all that much saturday morning when we got up. I ran some last errands and we checked the oil and tire pressure on the car and than we drove for just over 2 hours to the cottage. I drove and it was my first time driving on a cottage road (=dirt and gravel) I was a little worried, mostly for meeting on coming traffic, but I was lucky, nobody came. We both had a really good time at the cottage I felt all the stress just leave my shoulders. It was nice to meet some new people, hang out with some friends and just laugh and not think of all about all the work that is waiting for you at home. We stayed a little later than we planned, so we didnt get home until after 1:00am. That was fine for me but Alan had to get up early to help his friend S move. I stayed home to study, which I did for a good chunk of the day. And I napped for another part. I called my brother to wish him a nice trip as he is going on a business trip to Spain, lucky bum and my sister-i-l to wish her a happy birthday. After that I found a tasty recipe for a fish baste online and modified it a touch to make tasty salmon on the barbeque for our sunday night dinner.
The rest of the week has mostly just been study study study. I have three exams only days apart, one tomorrow thursday and saturday, but I keep telling myself after I'm done my exam Alan will come and pick me up from school and we'll go camping for the Canada day long weekend. I can not wait to go! I *so* need a mini vacation :) Anyone want to come?!? We're going with our usual group of maritimers and it should be an awesome time. We got a group site that holds 50 people, and we're not close to capacity yet, if you dont have any plans, this could be it!
I should get back to studying now though. Have a good one and we'll talk to you soon!

So far we have caught 3 squirrels in our trap. It clearly works on squirrels, but what about groundhogs?!? Perhaps I chased the groundhog away for good last time, I can be pretty scary dont you know!

Bye bye Broccoli

I think it must have been because I posted that picture yesterday, but the ghroundhog has discovered our veggie patch. I found it dining on our broccoli yesterday afternoon. I tried to chase it away and it hid underneath our deck where he clearly has made a little hiding spot/2nd home. We have therefore now bought a humane groundhog trap and are trying to get rid of said animal and move it to a different location in the forrest where it will be able to live happily ever after and leave our flowers and veggies alone. We considered building a fence, but it will be to expensive this year, and since he pretty much hides/lives underneath our deck, we just want it not there. I will keep you update on the status quo.
Last night Alan took me for dinner at the works, because I really wanted to try out the new place they built here. It is just as tasty as the one downtown, so *yay*! I had a turkeyburger with peanut butter, Monterey Jack cheese and bacon. It was alright, would have liked it better if the peanut butter had tasted more like sate sauce, but it wasn't bad, and I was happily surprised by the cheese whcih really gave the burger some flair. All in all it was tasty and it was nice to be out on a date.
Today is my big study day. Unfortunaly I slept in longer than I wanted, but clearly my bosy needed it. My stress levels are really high the last few days. With my exams coming up and organizing my project and finding courses to register for this coming fall/winter, I have just been mood swingy and grumpy and I do not like it. I really putting a lot of pressuring on myself to do well and even though I can rationalize that I shouldnt do that, and it really isnt necessary/ will just make things worse for myself, I havent been able to not do it and relax. Probably once I have a few things checked off my list I will feel a lot better. here's hoping! Anyway, I better start working on that list!

Success and Busy times ahead!

As you know I am trying to graduate in the spring and so I have been looking for a supervisor to work with in order to be able to do my fourth year honour's project. On tuesday I went in to meet up with a prof, who's research is in neuroscience and than mainly focussed on epilepsy research. He is taking me on as a undergrad student and I am so excited, it sounds like he is doing a lot of interesting stuff, he still publishes regularly and he is very well respected in the field, so that is always a bonus. I am meeting with him again at the end of the summer at which point he has a better idea where they are with the research and what his grad students are doing as they get first dibs. Than I will have a choice of 3-4 projects and pick which ever one seems the most interesting to me. This is a pretty sweet deal as often profs will not let you do this and just sort of assign you something to do. I feel very relieved that I have now found a project and my plan can go ahead as I wanted. There is a website with his research on it, let me know if you're interested and I will forward you the link.
I am now looking into what courses I will be taking next year as registration season is coming up. And I have been keeping extremely busy with school these last few days/weeks as my finals are next week already, which is absolutely insane! I still have *a lot* of work to do before then. So that is what I will be doing today, study study study!
This weekend is M's new girlfriend J's cottage party. I am looking forward to the break, we are only going up for saturday as I need to study on sunday and Alan has other commitments but even a day at the cottage will feel as a short but sweet vacation!
Are veggies are doing well, some peppers are already growing and beyong the flower stage and some of our tomatoes have flowers now, which means they will start growing tomatoes soonish!
I think we have spinach coming up, we have peas and beans starting and I have seen carrot leaves, so so far so good! I will keep you posted on the progress! Here's a picture of our just planted garden. There is alittle bit more visible there now, so soon time for an update picture, plus we havent finsihed the brick work yet.

We've got growth

Heheh, that sounds funny, especially if you say it with a voice of a caveman who doesnt speak english.. anyway, hello everybody!
My life has been a lot more exciting lately, I have also felt extremely busy, so that could be why.
First things first:
Fijne vaderdag papa!!
Our exciting news of the day is that we now have radishes growing. They are already showing up and I think we may have some spinach showing as well, so That y friends is super exciting. I feel funny and super domestic, but at the same time, *so* exciting to see your first little veggies grow. In the mean time we have expanded our vegetable family with some left-overs from Mr and Mrs yard (aka, two more tomatoe plants, and red peppers) and a donation from popa, he grew us beans! isnt that so cute?!? I believe they're called kentucky something or other, either way, super cool. We now have to find a place to park said beans as out veggie patch is getting rather large, So exciting!!
On friday we celebrated a joined Birthday/father'sday for Mrs and Mr, they had a barbequewith hamburgers and turkeyburgers, salad and lots of other good stuff and three types of desert. It was fun.
Saturday I played soccer for the first time since I hurt my back. We played men down for the first half, we played the best team in the league so we didnt reallyhave a chance to score, but it was a lot of fun, the next half we forfeighted and lend some of their players and continued to have fun until the last 10 minutes where I once again put my back out. I went to go for this ball, and I shouldnt have It is already feeling a billion times better than the first time I injured it though, so even though it felt worse at first the swimming etc must be doing my back some good! We went to S&L's housewarming party saturday night and had a great time.
Sunday we went to visit grandpa and had a pick-nick lunch with him and that was a lot of fun as well. We hadnt been able to visit in a while, so it was nice to see him and it was good for him to get some fresh air, plus pick-nicks are the best! I love them!
This morning I got an email back from one of the neuroscience prof's I emailed about a 4th year project supervisor. He wants to meet with me tomorrow, so I am pretty excited and I am going to be doing some research on his research so I sound semi-intelligent when we talk about it. I hope this will work out so I have found my supervisor and I can continue making my plan. Besides from what I have read his research sounds pretty cool, so we will see, I will keep you posted for sure!
Alright, well, I'm going to get ready to run some errands, see ya.

Lot's of cool stuff!

--------+990ppppp
That was Izzy saying hi. No crazy kitty pictures yet, I have been a littlebusy, but I'm working on it, trust me!
First thingsd first, my brother and his wife had to go in for their 20 week ultrasound, and the baby is doing wonderfully! Everything is formed well and where it is supposed to be! *so* exciting! We know what it is too, so if you dont want to know stop reading for a while..... It's a girl!!!!!!! I would have been just as excited with a boy, but at the same time, I wont be the only girl born into the family anymore! Yay, that's awesome! now we're at equal strength with the boys too! It is all becomming so much more real now, I'm on cloud 9!

On friday we went to L's birthday party we celebrated big as it was a big occassion, so we spent lots of money on fancy food at the empire grill, we had a pretty good time, but I didnt feel the food was all that extravagant, so I was a little bit disappointed to be honest. All the same we had a good time though!
On the weekend Alan and his dad put in our vegetable garden boxes (again, pictures will follow soon!) It was hot and sticky, so it really wasnt the most enjoyable time putting it in I'm sure. I felt a little bad I couldnt help because of my back. But, the garden boxes are in, and we bought a whole pile of veggies and they are in and it looks amazing. Thanks boys!! So so far no wildlife has been eating our veggies yet. We planted lots of tomatoes, green peppers, carrots and radishes, peas and beans and lettuce and broccoli an green onions and spinach and we have a whole pile of fresh herbs that I am trying to find a spot for elsewhere in our actual garden. How cool is that eh?!? I am bad, everyday IO go out to check if anything's to be ssen yet. And yes, I do realise it takes a week or ten days minimum before seeds germinated. Some of our veggies were planted as plants,the tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and lettuce, the rest are seeds, I feel excited like a little kid. Once the bricks are in and the path is all done and pretty it will look absolutely amazing! I cant wait!!
I got my mark back for business and was rather disappointed, I expected it to be a higher than it was, but it wasnt so so be it. It's still a good mark, it just means I will have to study a little bit harder for my finals, which are in 2 weeks from now already. Arrghh scary thought. I have decided I want to graduate in April, so in order to make that happen I have to find myself a supervisor for my 4th year project. This could be a problem as most people already have found their profs by now, so it may be a needle in a haystack, but I'm going for it. I figure I have nothing to loose, I'm going to give it a shot and if it works than great, of it doesnt than.. oh well, I havent lost anytime. So that's my new plan, I will keep you posted. And on that note, I'm going to go water our veggies! Talk to you later

Backpain = no fun at all!

Good day to all. Last week when i was pretending to be bob the builder when building our planting boxes for the backyard without help I managed to pull a muscle in my lower back. Since I had never really injured my back before I didnt think to take it slow for a few days to let it heal, I figured some extra excersise would do it good. Not so. After building some more my back hurt like crazy. See I always assumed you would feel it when you hurt your back, non of this, nothing going on, dubduduuu, the next day you cant bend over kind of thing.. But appearantly that does happen. So than I figured, well I'll do a little bit of running during soccer to make it better, again mistake. So now it is wednesday, a week later and I am still not able to bend over and scratch my toes without feeling my back. Ok this is a big huge whine fest, it is nothing excruciating, just stiff and a ltitle sore, but I have to be very careful to not hurt it more, and so I am bored because I cant do a whole bunch of things I would like to do right now. Suck it up princess and do some schoolwork.. yeah maybe ;)
Yesterday I met up with my friend L and we went shoe shopping to find her something nice for her birthday, which we will be celebrating on friday. I am looking forward to it, it should be a lot of fun! We're supposed to all dress up fancy and although I am not usually into that, this time I am really feeling it!
It is june and it is 12 degrees outside. what is going on here?!? at least the sun is shining.
I took Izzy to the vet for her booster shots yesterday. It went well, she is growing very well and looking healthy. She has taken up biting lately and eventhough the vet didnt have any good advise on this the receptionist did, she suggested giving her a stuffed animal about her own size she can attack to her hearts content. We did and it seems to work. It is hilarious to watch, our cute little kitty becomes a vicious lioness when she sees this little animal, she goes straight for the jugular. She bites us a lot less it seems Yay! Alright, well I'm going back to studying. Talk to y'all later

short note

Hello all,

I dont want to get back into the habit of blog neglect, so here is a short little update. I find that when school gets busier and Alan works from home I post less. I dont like using my own computer as much as his, and since I usualyl post during the day I dont post as much when he's around strange but true.
So this is going to be a shortish post as I just got of the phone with my sister in law. Well that's not why, the reason is, is that I should be studying for my midterm tomorrow, but I felt like checking in on her and the baby so we ended up chatting for a long time which was amazing, but not very good for stuyding. And so now, I guess time for more porcrastination?!?
Anyway, our yard project is going pretty slowly, and I am getting alittle impatient because I want veggies. I was working on it yesterday for a while, and our second out of 5 boxes is almost done. I dont think we'll get to planting this weekend again, but that is life I guess. Once my midterm is done I'll have more time to spend on that as well. It will look amazing when it is finished though!
Alright I think that is it for now. the kitty is getting big. She kept me up all night as she was playing, mostly on top of me, and so since she is sleeping now it sounds like a pretty fair thing to go and bug her for a while.. oh and study for my midterm.. right!
ttys!

Busy few days!

I have done a lot in the last few days, so I will try to remember best as i can what I have been up to. First of all on friday Alan and I got together with some of our friends (3 other couples) which was a lot of fun! M&R we hadnt seen since christmas, so it was especially nice to catch up with them! Saturday was the big game day, so I met up with some of my University friends and went to a bar on Elgin to watch the game there. It was insane! The had closed parts of Elgin off and after our team won people went nuts! Everyone walked from Elgin to the Hill and was chanting and cheering. It was very nice to see Ottawa in such an excited state! We're in the finals now, so hopefully we can keep up this winning streak!
Sundayyyy.... oh right, I met with my friend J, went to see the tulip festival downtown (which was small and not nearly as impressive as dowslake and I do not understand why they used to charge people money to go and see that, but anyhow, they dont do that anymore thank goodness) we did a little bit of shopping, and than we went for a facial, which was very nice. I have never gotten anything like that done, and it was mostly just nice to be pampered. I really liked that. It isnt something I would do all the time, but defintely nice.
After that we went for a movie and a sleepover at our friend A's. It was a lot of fun. On Monday, when I got home Alan and his dad had started our backyard project. They had ripped most of the plants out (this is a good thing) and were leveling some of the dirt, they cut a bunch of lumber to the right size etc. It is going to look very good when it is done. We havent had time to work on it after because it's been to busy.
Monday I worked on pruning our weeping mulberry tree. It clearly had not been taken care of in a while. I had not idea what it was called at first, so I searched the internet, than was pretty sure what it might be. At homedepot I saw trees like it so than I knew I was right. I called a nursery and they told me how I was supposed to do this, so I took 3 sets of pruning sheers to the tree, as well as a woodsaw. It looks pretty good now if I may say so. Go tree go!
Alan's cousins from BC are visiting, so we have been hanging out with them. They are super nice and a lot of fun to be around, I really like them a lot. On tuesday night Alan's parents brought them over to see the house and the cat (whom is getting very big if I may say so!) yesterday during the day I met up with them and a whole bunch more cousins at the war museum, and we did a tiny bit of site seeing, sat on a patio and than went to Alan's parent's for a dinner with even more cousins. We counted them and aside from 3 others all boys cousins were there, so of course a good foto opp. It was very nice seeing everyone again and catching up a bit. It is neat to see how the family is expanding everytime we get together there seems to be a new addition whether child or sign. other. Alright, I think this post is long enough. time for breakfast!

feeling kind of lame

I am not even sure that is how you spell lame, but there it is, I'm taking an author's liberty. I had the worst night's sleep last night and it has left me with a head that feels as if it is filled with cotton balls, do you know that feeling?
I feel a little bored and I have felt bored the last few days and I am not entirely sure why, because I have lots to keep me busy. I think the rainy weather may have something to do with it. Although the weather is fabulous for our newly developing lawn. You can see a light green glow over the dirt now, how exciting! It;s still a little patchy but I'm sure that will grow in still. The weather and the fact that I havent talked to a lot of people lately. I'm not used to sitting at home with nobody to talk to (Alan is working downtown this week on a project)
I was thinking, I really never discuss anything in debt. I always stick to the safe topics and descriptions, mostly of my day to day life and I wonder if that makes this site boring. Is there too much of that. Ok I know the whole point of this blog was to describe my day to day life to the people at home but... Some people have amazing looking blogs and discuss all sorts of interesting in depth things or write about their exciting lives overseas or at their crazy jobs and it makes me want to travel and explore and be adventurous. At the same time I am very happy and content and safe with my 'less exciting' overseas life, and so I wonder if that makes me boring... I don't know? I would say you could argue both cases for that. I feel I have changed a lot since I have gotten here, grown a lot, learned about myself a lot and most times I really enjoy the changes I have gone through, but other times I feel I have become too serious and calm and focused. To tense and stressed almost and I feel my sense of humour disappearing a little bit. I would like to work on getting a little more positive, imaginative energy going, perhaps the spring sun is already loosening it up as I have started to think about all this stuff, but sometimes I feel like my inner me is collecting dust and that's not good. Time for spring clean up I say! By the way I don't mean to sound depress(ed)(ing) I'm just sort of making observations.
Last nights class was alright. The material is interesting, but I do not like the prof, I worked with him for a few weeks and he is pretty arrogant and full of himself, I suppose that sort of goes hand in hand doesnt it but anyway, it is going to be a lot of work and I havent decided yet whether I'm going to like this course or not. More on that later.

Back to school for me!

After a nice two weeks off it is time to turn the brain back to school mode and start from scratch again, and that is what I have been doing in the last few days. The rain nicely symbolises my mood over being done my vacation, but so far I like the courses I have picked so that is a bonus. I am taking children's literature, 2 beginner business courses and a psychology on the biological foundations of behaviour, which im looking forward too, it sounds interesting.
.............................. That was izzy saying hello. She is sitting right against the keyboard as to say, look at me, I'm pretty and deserve attention....
Anyhow, school is going to be a lot of work, especially the business courses as I do not know a thing what so ever about it, I already noticed that in my first class, so that should be interesting!
Yesterday I cooked up some chicken and asparagus on the barbeque aranged them on our plates and took them to the couch as we decided we would eat in front of the tv. I left the rest on the table, forgettign that a cat is not a dog and will climb on to the table, and so the last piece of chicken and asparagus were nicely examined, licked and half eaten by our cat. My bad, sorry Alan, no lunch for you! Hahah, it was pretty funny, she liked it she was licking her lips for hours after... ok maybe 5 min but still I tell you, it was tasty!

It's a girl!

Izzy's vet visit went pretty well. She is a healthy little girl kitten, so her name can stay! Yay! She didnt really enjoy her first shot or getting her temperature taken, but that is to be expected I suppose. After I brought her home she was a very sleepy kitten, and she spent a solid 1.5 asleep on my lap, and than many more hours asleep on our bed. In fact I think she slept from about 11:30am until about 1:00am the next morning, She woke up for short minutes, but really she slept for most of that time, after whcih it was of course time to start attacking Alan and I who were now trying to go to sleep. She has grown so much. It is soon time for a new picture of her in the scale. The first day we had her I took a picture of her in the scale and I was planning on taking a picture each week so we could see her grow.. yeah ok, so I forgot already after the first week. Maybe it will be a bi-weekly thing...?!? Who knows. Oh well.
My friend J and I are trying to sort out our tennis thing, it's notworking out to well, as most lessons are offered when I'm taking my evening classes. We're still trying though but our options are running out and we may have to wait until halfway through the summer until my classes are over. I went and bought some of my textbooks today, I got both of them used, so that was pretty exciting. I like getting deals on things I need to get anyway. I normally wouldnt go out and buy textbooks before classes started, but I already heard from friends of mine that you defintely need the books in each of these courses, so I figured if that's the case I might as well go early and get them cheaply while I still can.
I tried to find some nice patterns and yarn for a project that I am working on, but I couldnt find anything in the store and the lady that attempted to help me didnt really know what she was talking about, so I think I'll try a pattern I found on the internet this evening. If I dotn have to buy the pattern I can spend more money on yarn... right?!?
I'm not really enspired to write a lot this evening, my mind is elswhere, so I am going to leave you with a picture of the cat. write to you later.

Art Gallery visit

I forgot to tell you I went to the National Art Gallery on Friday to go to a special exhibition on Ron Mueck. It was very neat. This man makes sculptures that look like real people, except that they are not the right size. They're usually smaller or larger than normal. I had seen pictures on his work a few months ago and was amazed by it then, so it was nice to get an opportunity to actually go and see it. I would highly recommend typing in Ron Mueck into google images to get a feel for what I'm talking about. The detail with which these sculptures are made is simply amazing. You can see hairs and veins and pimples and wrinkles, the hole deal. And the artist did a good job in making the body proportional to it's size. At the end of the exhibit they had a movie playing showing how he makes these sculptures and it is a pretty interesting and long process, I forget the specific details, but he first takes or finds pictures of a person he is interested in. Than after he has made the design of the sculpture he starts by making a small sculpture out of clay to see if he likes it. If so, he makes it, again from clay, in the size he wants the final sculpture to be in in and uses it to cast a mold. When the mold is taken off he pretty much destroys the clay sculpture underneath, so the casting must go right the first time or he has to start over again. Than he uses the mold to make the actual sculpture. He paints the skin colour with different types of resin onto the mold, and than uses fiberglass and wood underneath for the structure. When that is done he does more painting and he puts hairs in one at a time. I really like seeing how something like that is done. Very cool.
The art gallery is going to be having an exhibit on Renoir next, and I think I might go to that too. I am not one for spending hours and hours at a museum, but I do like going for a bit and seeing some cool stuff. If anyone would like to come with me let me know!
yesterday I did some more gardening in the front yard and turned some more dirt on our weed infested lawn and last night Alan finished it and planted some grass seed and fertilized it and watered it, so now we're looking out our window every hour to see if anything is coming up yet.. yes I know it will probably take days if not weeks before we have a lawn but it is *so* exciting to see grass grow. Honest!
Our yard is an on going project and we are taking pictures to let you know how it is going the before and after thing you know. Alright I'm going to have a shower to get ready to go to the vet with izzy. I'll let you know how that went. Cheers!

Craazzzyy kitten

Our cute little sleepy kitty turned into crazy kitty.. Haha, she now races through the house and ounces on everything, including our heads when we are sleeping, but she is still cute. She is definitely getting bigger and much more coordinated though. It is so much fun to play with her! You have got to get fast though :) And she has discovered the sun, she loves curling up in a ball and sleeping in the sun. Much like she is doing now, on top of alan's little desk file organiser thingy on top of all the important papers.. aawwww....
Alan and I finally got our car registered on Friday. We have our license plate and insurance etc so I can now finally drive. And so I did on Friday night I went to do groceries, with the car all by myself. It was *so* exciting, and liberating to be able to do something like that without having to depend on someone else (whether bus or person with a vehicle) Awesome! I also had a thing on at school yesterday, I worked for the afternoon, and so I got to drive in to work and on the way home I got to drive a friend home instead of being driven home. We got the brakes and a couple of other things fixed, but when you brake there is still a vibrating sensation so something isnt lined up properly. Alan is therefore bringing the car back to the shop to get them to look at it again. Hopefully they can look at it today
Saturday Alan and I did some work in our front yard to make it a little bit more presentable, we're ripping up all the weed covered areas of our front yard and we're planning on putting grass seed down and hopefully it will come up and grow all pretty and nice and than we can focus on the backyard and make it look presentable for the summer. I really like gardening, it makes me feel more relaxed and it is nice seeing something you put in the ground grow.
Tomorrow morning i'm taking our kitten's to it's first vet visit. We'll see how she likes that.
Oh and I would like to rectify a little mistake I made in a post 2 posts ago, see I didnt realise how many typos I had made so when I was typing niephew was supposed to be a blend of niece and nephew as we dont know what it is yet, but I understand that totally didnt come across Oops! So we dont know what it is yet, but it will be cute I'm sure :) Alright more will follow on the vet visit I'm sure!

some more pictures!

Like I pormised before, here are some pictures of the kits and kitten!
You can see the hole mommy ripped in the wall and the box with the kits that went on the roof waiting for mommy to rescue them.















Cute kitty












Alan with Kitty!





















Kitty begging for attention in the kitchen















Sleepy Kitty...

One Kid, Two Kits and a Kitten

We have had a busy few days!
First of all I realised that I never mentioned in my last post that my brother and his lovely wife are expecting again. Sadly their first try wasnt meant to be, but now my little niephew is expected to be born in October. We are all very happy and every week I keep track online what is developing next. The baby is aprroximatly 8.7 cm and weighs about 43 grams. Hair is starting to grow to protect the little one from all the fluid it is in, and it's bones are starting to really develop now. Also, it's thyroid glands are finishing up and are starting to produce hormones. How cool is that?!?!
Next baby news was that of 'our' raccoon. We got some wildlife specialists in to remove our raccoon, whom turned out to be a mommy raccoon. She heard the guy saw a hole in the wall were we thought the nest might be and so she burried her babies in the insolation so we wouldnt be able to find it and then hid in our attick. Very smart! Scott the wildlife technician removed the little kits and some of the nesting material, and put them in a big wooden box. Next he used hardwired gauze and closed up all entry ways but one so the raccoon mommy couldnt get back out of the house. The last whole he put a one way kitty trap door, so the raccoon could get out but not back in and he built her a little platform so she could get on the roof easily. He put the box with the kits up on the roof and then left. As soon as it got dark I heard mommy come out of our attick through the little trap door and up and down our chimney a couple of times. Luckily she she took her little babies. Appearantly raccoons have 3 to 5 homes but have their babies in the safest one. She probably took her kits to one of her other nests, and so far we havent noticed her coming back, so hopefully the two of them was all she had. Raccoons can have up to 7 kits, but 2 is not unheard of. Pictures will follow soon.
And than today was *the* day! We went and picked up our lovely kitten. *So* exciting. She is sooo friendly and loves company and cuddling. Right now she is meowing her little head off, downstairs in the kitchen while I am typing this and it is really hard not to give in to her and go get her. We're keeping her in the kitchen and back hallway for just a few days so she can get used to us and the house and we know where to find her. We're still not 100% sureif she is in fact a she but we've been told by a lady with lots of kitten experience she's a she. We will see.
She is a climber she loves climbing everything and at 7 weeks is already able to climb along your pants to your shoulder if you'll let her. She likes sitting up top and taking a good look at everything. She's very playful and energetic and already knows how to use the litter box and how to eat and drink from a dish. We also got her some little foamy soccer baouncy balls to play with, and she loves them. She's running up and down the kitchen to play with them. I'm going to have *sooo* many kitten stories and pictures from now on, prepared to be bored! Alright enough time spent behind the computer. Time to play with kitty!!

Fallen off the wagon again!

Luckily for you guys I do tend to climb back on again eventually. So clearly a lot of time has elapsed since I wrote last, and I am not going to be able to repeat everything that has happened in the mean time, but I'll try to do a short summary, Batman style ;-).
1. my parents where here for three weeks and that was wonderful. It really did me a lot of good to see them and it helped me to put some stuff in perspective.
2. I have been keeping busy with school this semester, and at this point have 1 more final exam left (yay almost done!) I have a good feeling about this semester past, school is going well now I stopped working and I have started to focus on my next lag of the race: summer semester
3. I have picked the courses I want to take and am waiting for approval of my courses by the head of the department
4. I bought a hair straightener from my hairdresser and I love it. Its such a wuick and easy way to make your hair look completely different, which is perfect for me because I dont have a lot of patience to do my hair.
5.Alan went to BC for a week in March and so I had the house to myself for a week. It was weird and nice at the same time, but of course I was really happy to see him when he came home
6. a few of our friends have relocated to the same area of the city as where Alan and I are, so that is really exciting!
7. Still doing pretty well with healthy living. Not loosing weight as much because I havent been sticking to the diet and exercise thing, but I feel great and that is all that matters. So far I have lost 14lbs in total.
8.I am thoroughly enjoying our house and yard, especially now spring had finally arrived. We have renovation plans for a large part of the backyard and it is going to feel so rewarding when that is done! We have so many birds and other wildlife around the house .... and IN.
9. Heard scratching noises in the wall next to the fireplace and in my studyroom, when we looked outside we noticed a big hole in the top of our siding of the fireplace and Alan detected one at the bottom. Sounds/looks like we have raccoons :S more on this soon...
10.Alan and I will soon have a car. I can not tell you how exited I am about this. We're in the process of buying Alan's grandfather's 2002 Sunfire SE, not our dreamcar, but a good starter car. It will be wonderful to finally be able to drive somewhere by myself. I have never driven anywhere by myself, so I am *really* looking forward to this piece of independence and convenience. I will most likely commute to school by bus still, but for getting around on the weekend and evenings it will be fantastic!

ok I saved the best for last. How can it be better than item # 10 you ask?!? Well let me tell you! Alan and I are going to be getting a kitten and we're picking it (dont know if it's a he or she yet) up on sunday. That's right, *this* Sunday. Arrgghhh *so* excited so excited so excited!!!!!! We waited for so long and now it's going to happen finally! Mrs and I went to check out the kittens on sunday and I took some pictures of it. I was originally looking at a black and white kitten, but changed my mind when I met the kittens. I picked this cute little grey calico 'tiger' kitten. It was so funny and kept playing with me and I fell in love.. sorry Alan..
We havent decided on a name yet. But I am sure that wont be a problem, I expect suggestions of course :P!



here's a picture of the kitten with it siblings at about 4 weeks old I believe











This is me holding Kitty the Cat
Isn't it adorable!!!!!!
















here's a better look at it's face.. awwwww!























The other kitties were very cute too of course, but this one was my favorite along with the white and tiger kitten, but it was already gone. Here's a picture of the proud mother and the white-tiger and one of the black-white kittens.
Ok I am sure a lot more pictures will follow shortly. Tonight Alan and I may go to buy some kitten stuff Weeeeehhh! Write you later!

Butterflies

School has been keeping me on my toes the last little while. I'm happy to say though things are going very well. I am very happy with the results I have been getting so far, although that has started to make me slack a little bit. I really need to pick up the pace a little if I want to keep up the good work.
I am getting nervous. When ever something fun is going to happen I always get nervous. It has been like that for as long as I can remember, and although I am getting better at suppressing the nerves, they still come. I am typing with butterflies flying through my tummy and chest. Why you ask?!? Well let me tell you. My papa en mama are coming to visit us for three weeks as of tomorrow. I am *so* excited!!! I can hardly wait for it to be tomorrow. I will have to though. I was talking to mama on the phone and she said they were pretty much all packed up and ready to go. Their neighbours are driving them to the airport tomorrow 7:00am their time and then they will travel for over 12 hours to get to us. I cant wait for them to see our nice home and neighborhood, to go shopping with my mom, to have nice food and laughs and talk about when I was little and have them meet some of our friends and got to witnerlude and and and and!!!!! One more sleep!!!
Tomorrow I will first have to write my practical lab exam for my animal form and function class. I wrote the theory part of it on Monday and I think it went well. I have heard horror stories about the practical part though, but I wont listen, I should be fine.
On saturday Alan and I helped our friends batman and her husband j move into their beautiful new home. We had a great time and it is so nice to see our friends so happy with their new place.
On the healthy living front. I have been doing pretty well sticking to eating healthy, except for the last 5 days. I have cheated more than a little bit. Today was my first day back at eating healthy. But it was wonderful to eat some bad food. I am mostly over that craving now and I feel good about eating healthy again. I am feeling really good about myself and the way I eat. Although I am not impressed with my baking skills. I tried making muffins yesterday and they didnt really work out the way I wanted them too... Oh well, practise makes perfect as a wise person told me once.. ok last night after I was angry about wrecked muffins.. They really didnt taste that bad after all. I have started to notice a change in my pants. They fit more comfortably again, and my new clothes are getting a little bit bigger. On the exercise front I have been slacking. I only play soccer once a week, but it is a blast! They team I'm on is a lot of fun and so far with 2 wins and 1 loss we're placed 5th. Not bad at all! Well.. I suppose I should go back to memorizing some animal phyla. Have a good one!

snow!!!

The first real day of winter today was kind of nice in a way. We finally got some snow so my mom will be very happy, she wants snow while she's visiting. It was also the first day I tried out my fleece lining inside my coat and it is working pretty well. I torso was not cold at all! After I came home from school I tried out our new to us snow thrower (courtesy of grandpa C) and it worked very well. It saved me a lot some work that is sure! (picture will follow)
The snow also made me 45 minutes late for a 50 minute class, so that was a little bit useless. Oh well, I did some well needed power napping on the bus as I didnt sleep very well last night. and I luckily had another class today.
On saturday we had our friends J&J over. They were suppose to come last monday but J had the flue and stayed home instead. It was absolutely great seeing them and we had lots of fun. J and I are both crazy about ice cream so for desert we decided to try out my new Christmas present. Alan gave me this big plastic ball shpaed ice cream maker, which you can even bring camping. You make ice cream by rolling it and playing with it, so we took it to our empty finished basement part and played and chatted while making ice cream. This room will from now on be known as the Ice cream making room, because it worked very well! We made strawberry ice cream and it was very delicious! We also found out that J&J have gotten engaged over the Christmas holidays. The story was extremely romantic and I am So very happy for them. I think they make a great team and I wish them all the best!
Ok I'm going back to my stats homework!

Busy week

Hello all,

Don't worry I'm still here. My first real week of school has been pretty busy. I've already had my first lab and my first assignment and quiz due, but so far so good. I really enjoy being a full-time student, it feels liberating to be able to focus on something you really want to accomplish.
I've had a few people come up to me and say I looked really happy, and that is because I feel very happy. I don't feel homesick and I am happy with my place in life right now.
S&B had a meeting last night and it was really nice to have the girls over again. It was nice to hear their stories but half way through the night I sort of collapsed in this tired daze. I think it may have been a sugar crash from eating one of B's super delicious brownies. I normally respond very strongly to sugar (the doctor thinks I'm hypoglycemic) and since I have been eating healthy I have pretty much cut all real sugar out of my diet for the last week and a half. I can really tell my energy levels have gone up and I don't feel the same swingyness food wise as I normally do. If I dont eat in time I get extremely tired and grumpy and have no energy at all. Right now because I eat so well spread out I never have a real sugar low. Anyway, the brownie was the first real sugar I've had in almost 2 weeks, so that may have been it, or the fact that I just had along week. Either way, I was really happy to see the brownies, because I love them, and they were just the way I like them, fresh from the oven :) Thanks B!
By the way, just from doing this healthy eating thing for the last 10 days I have lost 2 lbs, who knows what will happen if I actually start exercising too!
Alan downloaded this really funny game for my computer. Because I use linux I cant run most games you would run on a regular pc without some major software writing or driver finding, so he got me some linux games and right now I am playing fish fillets. It is this puzzle game where you control 2 fish, a big one and a small one. they are secret agents and need to complete missions, but the only way they can get to where they need to go is by going through these maze like rooms. You need to push and lift obsticales out of your path in order to get to the next room, without dropping them on yourself or your partner 'cause that will kill you. It is hilarious and actually pretty challenging to solve the levels. I will keep you updated. In fact I think I will play some right now.
I should post a picture soon...
Bye for now!

Thank you sales!

One of the gifts 'the kids' got for Christmas this year was a clothes shopping spree with Mrs H. Today was my day to go shopping with her and oh my did I ever get a lot of clothes. Thank you boxing day sales and thank you people that had already gone before us and made the mall combination perfect: relatively cheap and not busy!
I got as gifts:
- new jeans
- a button up shirt
- 2 winter sweaters
- 3 "under sweaters" or spring/fall sweaters
-2 bras
And I bought a pair of corduroys and a hoody myself at american eagle.
I know! Crazy, I feel extremely spoiled, but honestly we bought 3 sweaters for about $20 total. Thank you sales! Even though we had to sift through some stuff there was still quite a lot of nice stuff left, so I highly recommend shopping right now! I am tempted to go again...
Other than that I had a pretty lazy day. I was feeling extremely tired this afternoon so I ended up having an almost 2 hour nap. Did a bit of studying and than supper. We were going to go out for Pho, but decided against that when we saw the weather outside and knew we had to take the bus to the place. I would really like to have a car. Not necessarily for commuting every day, but when we want to get together with friends or in this case when it is a pain to get to a place by bus. So instead I tried to come up with something to make for supper. I am not very good at that for whatever reason, especially not when I am already hungry. It takes me a long time to decide what to make, or I keep making the same staples which can get pretty boring. Even though I like lots of different foods, I have a really hard time knowing what I would like to eat that isn't junk food. Now that I am trying to eat healthy and use the GI diet as a guideline I feel I need to plan meals further ahead, which on a saturday when you fridge is empty doesnt work. Anyway, with Alan's help I ended up with a chicken Caesar salad, with homemade, GI friendly dressing. The chicken and the lettuce were tasty. The dressing... not so much. Not making that particular recipe again, perhaps an adaptation from it but other than that, Nope! I ate most of my salad and I will have a snack later tonight which should be fine. I cant wait until I get into my routine, it will be much better then. I really am going to keep going with this because I want to get the results and I wont have as many opportunities as last semester to exercise, so it will be very important to eat well.

Stiff arm

Thank you OHIP. I was able to go to the doctor's for my annual and get some vaccinations without any hassle because of you. I now have a stiff arm, but I will be better prepared against those evil bacteria or viruses which may want to attack me! I also found out that I have gained 13 lbs since I last saw the Doctor. That puts me to pretty much 25 lbs more than what I was since I left the netherlands, which is not at all where I want to be. Healthy living it is. I have been eating well for the last 3 days now and feeling alright. The first day I was extremely hungry. My stomach was probably stretched due to the turkey so I was starving all day even though I had enough to eat. It may also be psychological since I'm not in a routine yet and because of that I think about food a lot. I don't think it will be very hard to do once I have gotten my routine, all I need to do is keep it up. I will keep you posted (no pun intended).
I have been to 3 of 5 classes so far, and I think I will enjoy all of three. 1 of them will be pretty brutal work amount wise, one is a basic biology course geared towards engineers that have not had anything since high school (aka, this is a gene, DNA replication etc, aka Score!) and one is stats but the prof seems intriguing thus far. I do feel I will really have to get into the groove of homework and get a lot of things done on time so it wont overwhelm me. it feels like I have lots of free time now I am not working, but that time really should be mostly spent studying. Especially since I still don't read or write as fast as the average bear. Let's see if I can shack the procrastinator in me this term.....
Speaking of school. I got my horrible course mark back and I did not only pass, I ended up doing pretty well with a B-. Not an A, but definitely better than a D. He must have really bell curved that test! Either way, I'll take it!
I am heading out on a bed sheet shopping spree with my friend J. Talk to y'all later.

Happy 2007 everyone! Bubbles bubbles and more bubbles...

Yesterday was a nice ending to a nice year, aside form a little wave of home sickness that washed over me yesterday late morning, early afternoon. I'm over it now. See, I was very well prepared for Christmas, especially knowning that my folks will be coming to visit me come Februari, but kind of forgot about New Years and so it really caught me by surprise. The thing was, yesterday it really didnt feel like New Years eve at first and then BOOM...
Later in the afternoon we had the pleasure of showing off our new place to M&R whom I missed so much and were in town for the holidays. They are now on their way back home again, but with a promise to see each other more often this coming semester. I really hope that will happen. Last new years we spent at their cottage, which was loads of fun and we all missed it. It was really nice to see them and talk to them and get a descent update on things.
After they left Alan and I had pizza for supper, one of my last few 'bad' meals before I start my healthy eating regime. I will keep you posted on that. I know, I dont believe in New Years resolutions either, this just happened to coincide with New years and I figured it just made more sense to start things of when I am getting my life into a regularly scheduled day again (aka start school).
After supper it was time to get ready for our New years party at S&L's. We were the first ones there of course, as always. The plan was that all guests would bring an appetizer and BYOB. Alan and I brought spinach bites as our appetizer and champagne. Our lovely hosts ended up preparing a spinach artichoke dip and the other couple that came also made an appetizer containing spinach. Yesterday will from now on be known as Spinach Eve. L&S had picked a couple of delicious Australian bubble wines called Pink and Yellow. Garnished with starfruit it makes for a festive looking drink. Those wines combined with our champagne = more bubbly alcohol than I could handle :) I was having a great time! And so giggling and all we rang in the new year, I think for the first time in 2 years we didn't miss the actual change of the year. We left around 1:30ish and made our way through the freezing rain slush home. We only saw one minor accident on the way. All in all it was a good way to spend New Year's
And now it is now. As you can probably tell I have changed the look of my site once again. I switched over to the new version of blogger and I thought, while I'm add it I might as well go big and do some custom work. The picture at the top is my foot print on a beach in Greece. I picked that picture because I really like it and it has a lot of symbolism for me. I changed the colours on my blog to go along with the picture. My blog is going to be a work in progress as it isn't yet what I want it to look like, but it is a good first try.